


How to Succeed in Resistance (By Desperately Trying)

by A1derfulperson



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, OR I MIGHT JUST ADD ON TO THE END IDK, Panic Attack, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey attempts to be human, THIS WILL BE A MULTI-CHAPTER FIC, and now its angst, i think, it doesn't work out so well, it helps if you've watched the movie, not sure how serious shipping will be, stormpilot is implied, this started as fluff for Jessika/Rey for their ship week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 03:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10208900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A1derfulperson/pseuds/A1derfulperson
Summary: Rey couldn’t stop staring.Logically, she knew it was getting weird; Kriff, if any souls at the trading post on Jakku had stared at her like this, she would either be up in their business, snarling, or making a break for her speedster, depending on the species.And yet. She couldn’t stop staring.Not as Jessika Pava made another foul-mouthed joke, wiping the beer from her mouth with the corner of her flight suit. Not as Jess wrangled a group of fellow pilots into a drinking game. If anything, Rey’s stare grew wider, once it became clear that this particular game involved not only a lot of chanting, but some casual stripping as well.Judging by the pile of clothing mounting on the dirt floor that did not belong to her, Jess was doing pretty well.------Alternatively, Rey freaks out, experiences culture shock, has trouble making friends, and maybe gets the girl. Eventually. She has to learn to love herself first though, and self love is HARD.





	

Rey couldn’t stop staring.

Logically, she knew it was getting weird; Kriff, if any souls at the trading post on Jakku had stared at her like this, she would either be up in their business, snarling, or making a break for her speedster, depending on the species.

And yet. She couldn’t stop staring. 

Not as Jessika Pava made another foul-mouthed joke, wiping the beer from her mouth with the corner of her flight suit. Not as Jess wrangled a group of fellow pilots into a drinking game. If anything, Rey’s stare grew wider, once it became clear that this particular game involved not only a lot of chanting, but some casual stripping as well.

Judging by the pile of clothing mounting on the dirt floor that did not belong to her, Jess was doing pretty well.

“You should join them.”

Rey startled out of her solitary staring contest. Frowned.

“Finn.”

Her friend sighed, repositioning himself so there was less strain on his back. Finn was still technically in recovery, weeks after finally waking up from his coma. Rey had returned from her mission to retrieve Skywalker to find Finn able to breathe and sit up, and little else. Rey tracked his recovery in the conversations they shared in his hospital room, after her daily trainings with Luke. As the weeks went by, they became less one-sided, as Finn became more animated in his storytelling, especially when it came to describing the exploits of a certain pilot. Rey secretly thought that if said curly-haired flyboy had not been away on a mission, Finn (and maybe herself, by extension) would have already been assimilated to what was shaping to be a shirtless flexing contest. Kriff, they still might have been invited already, if Rey hadn’t gone out of her way to choose the darkest, most secluded place in the mess. Which her friend had no doubtedly caught on to. As he had no doubtedly caught on to the fact that she was no longer paying attention to the words he was saying. Rey tuned back in to see her friend waiting patiently, soft smile in place.

Kriff. _What did I do to deserve this?_  

“Rey…” Finn said slowly, retraining his friend’s focus. “In the First Order, they trusted only as far as they could shoot, and I imagine on Jakku? It would have been... similar.” Rey’s frown softened, as she watched her friend fight to choose the right words. _Finn cared, Finn understood, Finn can be trusted_ , _why won’t you trust him, why don’t you try-?_

“I’m still... processing everything,” Rey interjected, saving her friend, and herself, a painful, _mental,_ conversation. Finn swallowed; nodded.

“Right. It’s a lot to get used to.” ” Finn paused, but deliberately slid his hand towards Rey’s on the table. When she didn’t flinch away, he rested his fingertips on hers. The pressure was reassuring. Rey hoped he’d leave it at that.

“But Rey?” _Damn it Finn._

Finn was trying to catch her gaze, she’d let it slide again, when would that stop happening, when would she make it stop-

“People work differently here.” Rey frowned deeper, _like he needed to tell her that, of course it’s different, was this his idea of helping?_

Rey focused on breathing again. On redirecting her thoughts. _Finn is a friend. Finn is trying, that’s more than whatever you are doing…_

Rey opened her eyes - when had she closed them? - focused on looking past him. Marvelled that a human as small as Jess could out drink an alien four feet taller than her. Jessika was too busy winning her drinking contest to feel her gaze, and Rey was happiest that way. Should be happiest that way. Afterall, she had Finn.

Finn, who was squirming in his seat, back obviously bothering him. Rey sighed, and mentally prepared herself to convince her friend to return to the medical wing. She had only been allowed to take him to the mess in the first place after promising to not let Finn overexert himself. Kriff, he probably had to make them the same promise, about her. Rey opened her mouth to say something, anything, but instead a loud cheer exploded from the pilot's table. Jess’ most recent opponent hadn’t finished their beer in time, and had removed their flight suit, adding it to the pile on the floor. The cheer was a mix of excitement over the loss, and the cooing over the multi-colored underwear they were wearing underneath. Everyone was laughing, trying to compare underwear and swapping innuendos. Rey closed her mouth, thinking of how different the scene was from the one she embodied not three months ago; of sandstorms and scratched walls, and meals eaten alone. Rey wiggled her fingers, feeling the weight of her friend’s still resting on top of her’s.

“It’s not them, Finn.” 

Finn nodded, covered more of her hand. A handhold in a sea of noise. Finn understood better than anyone, Rey thought. He had lived his life in a similar state of fight or flight. Neither of them had felt safe enough to relax. At least, Rey hadn’t; not on Jakku, not on the mission to return BB-8, not while being interrogated on Starkiller base. Having a focus, a mission, saved her, stopped her from being overwhelmed by all the ‘new’ in her expanded universe. Jakku had been… isolated. Insulating. The most social interaction was with the rare fellow scavenger, or while trading at the outpost. To go from beige sands and sunsets and loneliness to suddenly space and sound and green…

Rey hadn’t been surprised, after the adrenaline wore off, when the first panic attack hit. Or she had been, at first, before Luke had managed to talk her through it, explain what it was. It had happened during mediation, during kriffing _relaxation_ , not long after reaching Luke’s island, after becoming his apprentice. _Would he have accepted you if he knew you were broken?_

Rey shivered, coming back into focus again. Focused back on the pilots, her pilot. Tried to understand why insulting one’s parents got groans of appreciation while insulting one’s commander got stony silences, then sudden dog piles.

It’s not that the pilots were not good people; even while watching them wrestle half-naked, Rey was amazed at how deeply devoted everyone was to the light side, to the cause of defeating the First Order. It was just… overwhelming. Like trying to learn a new language while being flung from a TIE-fighter in zero gravity. And yet people gravitate to such chaos, Rey knew, she SAW as the pilots’ table grow crowded, rowdier and less clothed.

At least Jakku had rules. Learning fast was a matter of survival. Loud cursing, posturing meant aggression, hostility. Here? Rey watched as people greeted each other with the gravest of insults, then turned around to buy each other drinks and ask about their latest mission, all while avoiding the wrestling match on the floor. So, yes Rey had a lot to learn, only she wouldn’t die if she screwed up the rules, even if people were cheering too loud and sweating too much too really process anything and oh kriff, why were they cheering even LOUDER-

“FINN? REY!! You little bantha SHITS, is THAT where you’ve been hiding?” Jess practically screamed from her table.

 _Yeah, nice try. Try getting used to all THAT_. Rey grimaced. Shifted her grip to squeeze Finn’s hand. She wanted to be used to it. _Why couldn’t she get used to it?_

Jess’s pilot swagger became especially pronounced as she sauntered to the booth where Finn was smiling, waving her over with his free hand, and Rey was slowly shrinking into her chair. Finn had the advantage of being on base longer than Rey, and thanks to one Poe Dameron, had practically been adopted by the starpilots. Whenever Poe had been called away from Finn’s hospitable bed, after he had woken from his coma, Poe had made sure at least one of his pilots was always there, to keep Finn company, and teach him about the resistance. Thanks to all the exposure, the pilots’ brashness and stunts no longer fazed the former stormtrooper, hence why he was able to wave - a very nearly drunk - Jessika over to their table without a second thought.  

While Finn was all but immune to the pilots’ antics, Rey was still coping. Having all that time to de-stress and mediate on the island had given her the time she needed to sort things out, somewhat. But unlike her ex-stormtrooper friend, Rey hadn’t even had squad members growing up to practice relationships with. Living with the First Order had seriously messed with Finn, but here he was, babbling away to Jess about Poe’s not-so-secret-mission, without looking visibly tense. Rey couldn’t even get past the being-tense-in-public stage, even if she liked the people she was talking to. Person.  Because now Jess was talking to her, and she had missed whatever the pilot had said and now she’d think Rey was weird and rude and- 

“-lonely just say so! I swear, I could feel the Force from her eyes across the room. That’s totally how the force works, right Rey?” Jess finished, giving the seated Jedi apprentice a good natured shove with the hand not holding her beer. Maybe if Jess hadn’t been too drunk to notice her posture, or if Rey hadn’t already felt on the edge of fight or flight mode, or if Finn hadn’t been too distracted by his storytelling to notice her increased discomfort in the first place, maybe things would have turned out differently.

As it was, Jess hit the ground harder than Rey had intended, and there was the sound of a glass shattering and there was a sudden choked off scream that made the whole canteen fall silent for a split second.

Then the world exploded into sound and light and screams of “ _Medic_!” and people shouting, shouting at Rey, and all Rey could think before she drifted away was that the doctors would kill her if Finn reinjured his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome! This fic was inspired by a loud, brash, unapologetic person, who I didn't know how to deal with, and was vaguely attracted to. They turned out to be a bit of a jerk, but the experience made for good dramatic conflict! 
> 
> Also, this was supposed to be a meet-cute fluff thing? To add to the sadly lacking Jess/Rey tag?  
> ... Needless to say, it went in a different direction. I hope you enjoy it! Constructive criticism is always appreciated! 
> 
> *Sadly, I do not own the Star Wars universe; none of these characters belong to me! I just play with them*


End file.
